Set Secrets

Why Daenerys Is Dressing More Like Missandei on Game of Thrones

There are doubtlessly thousands of would-be Westerosis putting the final touches on their Arya and The Hound Halloween costumes, but if you want to get the details exactly right, you might want to wait until you have this book as your guide. Inside HBO’s Game of Thrones: Seasons 3 & 4, now available for pre-order and shipping on November 11, digs deep into the details that make the show’s world feel authentic, including input from the directors and cast, step-by-step explanations of the show’s visual effects, and the costumes that rival haute couture.

That’s according to Emilia Clarke, at least. In this exclusive excerpt from the book, costume designer Michele Clapton and Clarke talk about how Daenerys Targaryen’s signature look has evolved over the years, incorporating her “precious blue” colors into the men’s-inspired clothing that makes Dany feel powerful. “I’ve been lucky enough to experience couture now,” Clarke says in the chapter, “and I’m telling you, I look at these costumes and I think—we’re better.”

Clapton, who has won two Emmys for her work on the show, says that the evolution of Daenerys’s costumes is “partly about her journey of becoming a woman and a leader, but also the practicality of it”—including the leather riding boots that Clarke says are her favorite part of the costume. But it’s not just about Daenerys being a woman and queen; it’s also about being a young woman who wants to emulate her super-cool friend. “You start to see similarities between Missandei and Dany,” Clapton says. “She is still a young woman and she would want to dress like the woman she perceives as her friend, someone who has proved herself as they have traveled together. Dany wants to erase the idea of slave and the separation it causes and that is part of it as well.”

For Clarke, the costumes—and especially those boots—are part of what unite her to the character, who has undergone the kind of journey on the show that’s hard for any actor, living in the real world, to imagine. “[The boots] have been filled with blood, they have been filled with snow, they have been filled with sand and mud—they have had it all. They are my favorite bit of Dany. At drama school, it’s one of the first things they tell you—if you can’t find a character, walk in their shoes—now, those boots, they just make you feel strong.”